You and I Aren't Heroes
by Baroness Kika
Summary: Modern AU: On the Giant Wheel at Prater in Vienna, Austria, Peeta Mellark quotes Orson Welles and changes Katniss Everdeen's view on just about everything. Written for Prompts in Panem, March 2013; "Famous Movie Posters: The Third Man".


_Peeta better have a damn good excuse for why we're walking through this amusement park in the fucking rain,_ Katniss thinks to herself as she holds her poncho in place over her head to keep the wind from blowing it back. _And what the hell is the deal with these creepy ass clown statues? Weirdo Austrians…_

"Watch out for that pudd—" Peeta hollers at her, a few seconds too late. Her foot stamps directly in the middle of the ankle-deep hole, and a wave of pain shoots through her leg. The only advantage to Peeta insisting she wear a skirt this evening is that at least her legs will dry off easier, but hobbling around Europe on a strained ankle for the next three weeks? She needed to sit down.

"You okay?" Peeta says, looping his arm around her waist. His umbrella offers less protection from the weather than her poncho does, but she's grateful for the extra coverage.

"That fucking hurt. Can we just go back to the hostel now, please?" Katniss asks, limping along when they start moving again.

"Come on, we'll get you some ice for it. Just a little further…"

"Peeta, please, we're gonna catch something if we stay in the rain like this…"

"We aren't staying in the rain, Kat, I promise. Look up, will ya?" he says. She does. And she gasps. Peeta had been yammering on and on about the Great Wheel at Prater in Vienna for weeks before they'd gotten on the plane destined for Europe, but she'd pretty much forgotten about it in favor of seeing the Arc'de Triumph and Lake Geneva. But they had unlimited ride EuroRail passes, so they compromised that this excursion would include everything the other one wanted to see, no bitching one way or another. So Katniss hadn't complained when they skipped Berlin in favor of Vienna, and now she could see why.

This thing is massive. And ancient. And she's expected to get on it. Is he out of his gourd?

"This is going to be how we die, isn't it?" she says, looking at her boyfriend before too much more rain gets in her eyes.

"I promise you, it's not. Come on," he replies, supporting her weight as best as possible. When they make it to the docking area, Katniss spots a ponchoed man holding a sign with Peeta's last name on it. Peeta walks them towards him, and holds out his hand for the man.

"Mr. Mellark, _willkommen _to Prater! Apologies for the terrible weather!" the man says. "Come, this way. Is your lady friend alright, sir?"

"She twisted her ankle, I'm afraid. Would it be possible to get her some ice?" Peeta says. The man nods quickly.

"_Ja, ja, _of course. Come, I shall settle you in the _cabine _first. This way, please."

"_Ich danke Inhen_," Peeta responds. The man looks delighted.

"Your German is very good, Mr. Mellark! Please, step inside!"

The man gestures them through a small door into a cabin about the size of Katniss's room back home. Instead of a simple enclosed ferris wheel car like the ones she spotted for afar, this is elaborately decorated. A small table set for two complete with candles and crisp white linens lays before them. This surely couldn't be _their_ car.

"Champagne is here, Mr. Mellark, with all the ice you might need. We'll provide fresh napkins on the second revolution, so please feel free to wrap your lady's ankle as needed. Enjoy the site!" the man says quickly before closing the door behind them. Katniss drops into one of the chairs as the giant wheel begins to spin. She gapes at Peeta.

"Is this for real?" she asks him.

He grins broadly. "Ours for an hour, dinner and drinks included. I wish the weather was clearer, but the views should still be great at the top. Here, put your foot up," he says, using a napkin to towel off his forearms before filling it with ice from the champagne bucket and setting it on Katniss's ankle.

Dinner. Champagne. A private cabin on one of the biggest tourist attractions in Vienna. This must have been exorbitantly expensive.

"Peeta, you promised…this trip is all on the cheap! Small hostels, no dinners out, all our money is reserved for sightseeing. How much did this cost?"

"I booked this before we even left, Katniss. Consider it your birthday present, will you?"

"You got me a birthday present," she says, pointing to her simple pearl stud earrings. Peeta shrugs.

"I wanted this to be special. Don't be mad. Just enjoy it, okay?" he tells her. He pours her a glass of champagne, and drops into the chair across from her. His blue eyes get lost in the sights through the wide cabin windows. Katniss sighs, and tries not to bitterly think that she could never afford to treat Peeta to something like this: she'd saved every penny she'd earned at her waitressing job all senior year to afford this trip, while Peeta had put his plane ticket on his father's credit card. Money wasn't ever a thing they really saw eye to eye on. Not when she was bound for state school on a full scholarship and work study, while he was heading to NYU film school in the fall.

They're silent for a little while as the massive wheel turns slowly, heading ever closer to its pinnacle point. They share an amazed breath as they take in rainy Vienna from the top, a panorama of red steepled European roofs interspersed with modern Western high rises. It's beautiful and complicated.

_Just like Peeta, _Katniss thinks.

A smile spreads across Peeta's face suddenly. He gets to his feet and looks out one of the windows. His voice adopts an accent that isn't his own. "_What did you want me to do?_" he says mostly to himself, but certainly loud enough for Katniss to make out every word. "_Be reasonable. You didn't expect me to give myself up... 'It's a far, far better thing that I do.' The old limelight. The fall of the curtain. …You and I aren't heroes. The world doesn't make any heroes outside of your stories._"

Katniss blinks at him.

"…Come on, Katniss, I made you watch that movie a month ago!" he says exasperatedly

"Which movie?" she replies. She honestly can't remember.

"Orson Welles! _The Third Man_! I told you it was one of my favorites, that it was the movie I wrote my essay for film school on, and you said you liked—you fell asleep during it, didn't you?" he says, his eyes narrowing slightly.

Katniss vaguely recalls a black and white movie set in Vienna that Peeta had them watch one afternoon on a break from final exam cramming. She'd spent the entire film with her head lolled on his shoulder, and once or twice she'd nodded off. She'd had the worse neck ache afterwards.

"Um…maybe a little bit…" she says.

Peeta laughs, and shakes his head. He knows she only watches movies with the likes of Orson Welles and Clark Gable and Audrey Hepburn in them because _he _loves them. In truth, Katniss has never had much time for cinema of any decade. She hadn't even seen _The Wizard of Oz_, a standard from his own childhood, until he'd brought it over so the pair of them and Prim could watch it. Prim cried at the end. Katniss had only shrugged.

"Let me refresh your memory…Welles saunters up to Joseph Cotten at Prater, and they board one of these cars, but one of the simple ones. They start to talk about the character Anna's arrest, her being turned over to the Russians, and then Welles starts to subtly threat Cotten into not turning him in, either. Until subtlety is no longer his style, and he throws the door open to get his point across," Peeta says, pointing to the door they'd entered through. Katniss gulps at the thought…she's not afraid of heights, but she'd really prefer that door stay closed. Peeta snorts. "They don't open like that anymore, baby, I promise."

He drops back in his chair and clinks his champagne glass against hers.

"So this is why you wanted a private cabin? So you could wander around quoting the entire scene and not look like every other old movie buff who probably does the exact same thing?" Katniss says teasingly.

Peeta's ears color.

"You're so goofy."

"That's why you love me, right?" Peeta's tone is boyish and optimistic. It tugs at Katniss's heart in all the wrong ways.

Because Peeta means the world to her. They've spent the whole of senior year completely inseparable. They'd explored one another's bodies slowly and when they finally bit the bullet and gave their virginity to one another, they'd each gasped in sheer amazement that their friends could be so blasé about something so earth shattering. And she did love him, in that head over heels way that one loves their first real boyfriend.

But this trip was supposed to be their last hurrah. Their chance to see Europe together before they went their separate ways. They both knew that, even if they'd never said it. Their relationship wouldn't survive 1000 miles and four years of college. They had to be realistic, no matter how badly it hurt.

And when Peeta said something like that, it hurt _a lot. _

Katniss doesn't respond, and Peeta's happy expression is replaced by a somber one.

"Peeta…"

"Don't, Katniss. Not tonight."

"I just want to make sure we're on the same page, that's all. You know that I won't ever stop loving you…"

"But you don't think we can make the long distance thing work. Am I right?"

The wheel spins round to the bottom. A different man shuffles on quickly with fresh napkins and covered plates of food. They're small items, so Katniss can only assume this is the first of several courses. She shoves an _aperitif_ in her mouth for something to do.

"If…if that's how you feel, I can rescind my acceptance to NYU. Stay in state," Peeta says quietly, looking down at his hands. The look on his face makes Katniss want to cry.

"Don't you dare," she tells him. "Don't do that just for me."

"I can learn about Hitchcock and Wilder from any theatre and film department anywhere in the world. I only picked NYU because that's where my mom wants to send me. But fuck her…I don't want to leave, not if it means losing you forever," Peeta says, a touch of anger in his voice. He never speaks out against his mother. It's odd to hear him start now.

"I'm not bringing this up because I like the idea of it, Peet. I just want to be realistic. And if you turn down moving to the theatre and fine film capitol of the country just for me, and we break up a year down the line, I'll never stop feeling like an asshole. I don't want to do that to you," she says, trying to be as gentle as possible. The _amusebouche_ she'd stuffed in her mouth had dried out her tongue, making the statement that much harder to get out. She already felt like an asshole.

"Then…I'll stay…and when we're ready, we'll get married," Peeta says slowly. The statement is bold and confident. Like he planned to say it this whole time.

"Did…did you just ask me to…Peeta, did you spring for this so you could _propose_?" Katniss stammers out.

"Maybe. If I did, what would you say?" he challenges her.

Katniss wonders if it's possible that the wheel just spend up to three times its speed. This is improbable. It's ridiculous. It's all manner of synonyms for the word crazy. It's…

_Exactly how Peeta would want to propose to me._

She feels her heart thump within her chest. He's staring at her. The crystal blue of his eyes is taking her breath away as if it's the first time she's ever seen them.

"I love you, Katniss. I've known since I was 10 years old that I wanted you to be my forever and always. You might think it's crazy, because we're 18 and we've never been with anyone else, but it's how I feel. If there's even the slightest chance that you might feel the same way, I'll take you to a jewelers tomorrow and get you fitted for a ring. I'll stay home, or move to New York and take you with me, or we'll shoot ourselves off into space and live on the moon, whatever it takes to show you how serious I take this. How serious I take _us._ How much I believe we can make it work. Just say the word," Peeta says. His eyes never leave hers.

And she is overcome.

"Well, say _something…_" he presses.

"You know I'm not good at saying something," she replies, biting back the hot tears welling in her eyes.

"Then answer this: do you love me? Is that real or not?"

"Real."

"Then think about it. Take all the time you need. We'll leave tomorrow for Prague, or Copenhagen, or Stockholm, or Helsinki, or wherever on this continent you want to go. And you'll think about it. And when you decide, you'll let me know. But right now, I want to enjoy being on the Giant Wheel at Prater, looking out over the Viennese skyline with the girl of my dreams, and enjoy our dinner because we haven't eaten since breakfast," he says, highlighting the last words by patting his stomach and making her laugh. "Can we just do _that_ right now, before this whole evening gets any more serious?"

Katniss wipes away a stray tear with her pinkie finger, and nods. _I do love this man. And he is crazy, _she thinks fondly.

Their fingers twine together as the rest of their meal is served. They don't notice the breeze rocking the car to and fro when they reach the top of the circular track, but they do see something different in the skyline, something they didn't notice the go-round before, each and every time the wheel revolves. Their meal service ends, and their hour is not far behind.

"How's the ankle?" Peeta asks.

"It'll survive," Katniss replies.

"Then come here," he says, getting to his feet and holding his hand out for hers. He supports her weight as they lean against one of the windows, and drink in the last revolution of the giant wheel. The warmth of their cabin and the chilly, rainy air combine to fog up a corner of the window. With one arm still around her waist, Peeta's hand reaches out and writes her name in the condensation, then draws a little heart with an arrow sticking through it below. She smiles.

"I remember something about that scene, Peet…something about little dots…" she says.

"_Victims?_" he quotes seamlessly."_Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?_"

"Well, that's dark," she says, her eyes widening. The innuendo of the line makes her shiver in his arms.

"That's Welles," Peeta responds.

"This is such a strange city," she remarks. The ferris wheel car sinks lower, and their view begins to disappear.

"Beautiful, though. Like you," he says, and kisses the patch of skin behind her ear.

"Lets go to Prague tomorrow. I promised Prim I'd take a video of the Astronomic Clock for her," Katniss asks, pressing her body against Peeta's. They'll mold together better later back at the hostel, so long as they're quiet about it and their suite-mates are asleep or down at the bar.

"Wherever you want to go, love, we'll go. Still mad at me for spending all this money?" he asks.

She shakes her head and beams at him.

He kisses her firmly in response.

The rain has turned into more of a light drizzle by the time they leave the cabin. They huddle together under Peeta's umbrella as the man who'd greeted them waves them off and wishes them safe travels. She's limping slightly, but the pain isn't anything an Ace bandage from the first-aid kit Prim had made them take and an aspirin or two won't help.

"Hold on, Kat…" he says, and takes a big deep breath. "I have to do this one last line."

She nods him on to continue.

"_Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love—they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock._"

She snorts out a laugh. She won't tell him until she's had a night or two to sleep on it, but she's pretty sure she already knows her answer to the question he'd asked earlier.

Instead, she simply tells him, "_You're_ cuckoo, Peeta Mellark."

"Only for _you_, Katniss Everdeen."

_**.fin.**_

**Note: All italicized quotes are taken directly from Carol Reed and Graham Greene's 1949 film **_**The Third Man. **_**The scene the quotes are derived from is available on YouTube. Thanks again to my friend and beta **_**sohypothetically**_** for her feedback.**


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